New close partnership between Libya and the U.S.? U.S. Defense Security makes historic visit to Libya

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta greets members of the Libyan delegation on the tarmac during his arrival in Tripoli, Libya, on Saturday.

After the death of Qaddafi, a new chapter is opening up in U.S.-Libya relationsas U.S. defense security Leon Panetta made a historic visit to post Qaddafi Libya.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Saturday that Tripoli could become an important security partner of Washington as he visited Libya for talks with new regime officials.“We are and will be your friend and partner,” Panetta said at a news conference with Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Rahim al-Kib.“This new and free Libya can become an important security partner of the United States,” he said, adding that Washington was looking forward to building a close partnership.“We stand ready to offer whatever assistance in the spirit of friendship and a spirit of mutual respect.” But Panetta, who also met Defence Minister Osama Jouili, stressed that his talks in Tripoli did not involve military equipment. “At this stage there was certainly no discussions involving arms or military equipment,” he said when asked about the type of security cooperation he envisioned. Earlier he had told the travelling press, including an AFP correspondent, that his brief visit to Tripoli was to confer with the country’s new rulers on the security needs of their government. “The purpose of my trip to Libya is to have an opportunity to look at that situation up close but to also pay tribute to the Libyan people to what they did in bringing (former leader Moamer) Kadhafi down and trying to establish a government for the future,” Panetta said. He acknowledged that Libya’s rulers would face huge challenges but said he was confident they would “succeed in putting a democracy together in Libya.” “I’m confident that they’re taking the right steps to reach out to all these groups and bring them together so that they will be part of one Libya and that they will be part of one defence system,” he said. Panetta said he expected the Libyans “to determine the future of Libya” and “determine what assistance they require from the United States and the international community.”Libya’s rulers are facing a big challenge as they try to disarm militiamen who fought to topple Kadhafi and secure thousands of surface-to-air missiles stockpiled under the former regime.

Though one can’t predict the future since it is unknown, what is known now is that Libya and the U.S. won’t have hostile relations between each other post Qaddafi.  This change from hostility to possible cooperation is no doubt good for both nations. The end of the Qaddafi regime brought to an end a sad, tragic, cruel chapter in the lives of the Libyan people.  With a new beginning, the road ahead will be difficult especially in reforming the economy to join global trade, having a stable political environment, but in the long run, that is what’s needed to move ahead.

China recognizes Libyan National Transitional Council

China has recognized the Libyan National Transitional Council, following the such countries as Germany, Turkey, France, U.K, U.S., Russia and institutions like the United Nations.

China has officially recognised the National Transitional Council as Libya’s ruling authority, the foreign ministry in Beijing has announced. It is the last permanent member of the United Nations security council to do so. China’s relations with the NTC were strained last week when it emerged Chinese arms firms had talked to Muammar Gaddafi’s representatives about weapons sales. The statement, released late on Monday – a public holiday in China – added that Beijing respected the choice of the Libyan people. Spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China hoped all signed treaties and deals would remain in force and be “implemented seriously”. It cited an unnamed NTC representative as saying: “Libya welcomes China to engage in the country’s reconstruction and jointly push forward the steady and sustained development of bilateral ties”. China had already held talks with the NTC and said it valued its “important role”, but had held off full recognition. “They have taken their time in recognising the rebels,” said Steve Tsang, professor of contemporary Chinese studies at Nottingham University. “I would have thought they really should have done this much earlier. I suspect the timing was simply determined by the practical issues of negotiations with the National Transitional Council and that now they have something they think will be satisfactory from their perspective.” But he added China’s behaviour would affect how it was seen by the rest of the world. “You will have quite a lot of people concluding China is much more interested in protecting its own national interests than performing its duties as a leading power in the international scene. As [one of the] P5 [permanent members of the UN national security council] there are certain expectations and moral responsibilities … The way the post-Gaddafi situation has been handled, [people] have not been giving China a particularly high mark,” he said. Chris Zambelis, a researcher at US consultancy Helios Global who focuses on the Middle East, added: “They saw the writing on the wall … Some countries are still holding out, but one by one they are lining up [behind the NTC].” He said while China’s energy interests in Libya were not as great as those elsewhere, it wanted to protect them. An official with a rebel oil firm suggested last month it might freeze out countries that had not supported it. There was embarrassment when it emerged that Chinese state-owned arms firms met Gaddafi’s representatives in July – despite a UN weapons embargo. Beijing’s foreign ministry said the government did not know of the meetings and that no contracts had been signed or weapons delivered. But Zambelis added: “Whatever rebel government emerges, China already has a place in the country business-wise. It wouldn’t make sense to start shutting it out … We will still see China in Libya.” China surprised some by supporting the UN arms embargo and abstaining on the vote on Nato airstrikes – though it later condemned the bombing. Its investments in Libya are thought to be worth about $20bn (£13bn).

China has been reluctant to recognize the NTC since it would go against its “non-interference” policy.  The changing regional dynamics and winds of change have made China grudgingly change its stance. Like Russia, China had business interests in Libya that it wanted to protect, hence its timidness in supporting the Libyan uprising against Qaddafi.

NATO ends mission in Libya

NATO has officially ended its mission in Libya enforcing the no-fly-zone.

NATO has ended its Libyan military campaign after thousands of combat sorties and billions of dollars of alliance and individual participant expenditures.

The alliance’s no-fly zone and naval blockade, which began in March, were terminated at midnight Monday after the U.N. Security Council closed the book on the mandate authorizing military action to protect Libya’s people from the Moammar Gadhafi regime.

Gadhafi is dead. Remaining members of his family have fled abroad.

And the rebel’s National Transitional Council has elected an interim prime minister, Abdel Rahim El-Keib, who will establish a government in parallel with the NTC to set the stage for a national constituent assembly, a new constitution and general elections.

The two events, however, dovetailed others that may not bode well for El-Keib and his pledge to “guarantee that we are going to build a nation that respects human rights and does not accept the abuse of human rights.”

In Tripoli on Monday two people were killed and at least seven wounded when a militia from the town of Zintan battled with Tripoli Brigade allies while trying to enter the city’s hospital to kill a man they had shot earlier.

The Zintan militia, like others in Tripoli and elsewhere, have ignored NTC calls to set down arms and return to their hometowns and villages.

In the eastern city of Benghazi, the wellhead of the rebellion that toppled Gadhafi, the black flag of al-Qaida has flown from its courthouse.

Elsewhere, various militias are reportedly terrorizing individuals and villagers suspected of having collaborated with Gadhafi forces during the rebellion that came to a close last month.

“We know it’s not easy,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said during a visit to Tripoli. “We know the challenges and if you ask us for help in areas where we can help, we will.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview with The Washington Post, also underlined the challenges.

“They have to figure out how to reconcile various political and religious beliefs,” she said. “They have to unify all the tribes. They have to deal with the rivalry that has existed forever between the west and the east, between Benghazi and Tripoli.”

Reconciliation will be a Libyan process. But NATO countries and Arab states can help with financial aid to help the new government and country build infrastructure and recover from months of fighting.

Training of Libyan military and security forces is another, although NATO has rebuffed an NTC request that it help secure the country’s borders.

Especially important to Libya and NATO — the United States included – is securing Gadhafi regime weapons stockpiles and tracking down weapons looted during the war. The regime was believed to have had as many as 20,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Many were looted and are turning up in black market weapon’s bazaars in the Sinai Peninsula near Israel and elsewhere.

U.N. inspectors are on their way to Libya following an announcement by the NTC that two clandestine chemical weapons sites had been discovered.

Whatever the country’s future, Rasmussen made it clear that NATO considered its military participation in the overthrow of Gadhafi a “successful chapter” in the alliance’s history.

Available statistics indicate that NATO combat aircraft flew more than 9,000 strike sorties, in addition to surveillance missions, during the fighting.

But the mission wasn’t cheap by any means for countries struggling with deteriorating economies. Between March and the end of September, the United States spent about $1.1 billion to oust Gadhafi; Britain spent $257 million-$482 million; and France depleted its treasury by as much as $485 million.

Those expenses are borne by the individual countries for using their own assets.

With the death of Gadhafi, Libya has to look ahead at the challenges that the country faces both economically and politically in the aftermath of the war.  Stability will be needed to produce a safe environment for reconstruction, rebuilding the country from the ground up with new institutions and leadership.

Countries that have regonised the Libyan National Transition Council (NTC)

Countries that have regonised the Libyan National Transition Council (NTC) are shown above.

United Nations gives Libya’s seat to National Transitional Council

The United Nations has given Libya’s seat to the National Transional Council, bringing the recognition of Gaddafi’s government to a formal end.

The UN also passed a resolution easing sanctions on the country, allowing Libya’s national oil company and central bank to resume operations. It means Libya’s national oil company and central bank can resume operations following the conflict.

Qatar to benefit from helping Libyan rebels

In aiding the Libyan rebels, Qatar being asked to help in rebuilding of Libya.

As Libya’s rebels mounted what they hoped was a final assault on Tripoli in their battle against Col. Moammar Gadhafi, they directed much gratitude in their six-months-long battle to one tiny, Gulf Arab state: Qatar.

A rebel fighter stood in front of a maroon-and-white Qatari flag in Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli Wednesday. After leading the region in training, equipping, and funding Libya’s opposition, Qatar is now best-poised to help mediate a political transition and employ some of its companies and expertise in a post-Gadhafi Libya, officials and analysts say. One of the Libyan opposition leaders, Mahmoud Jibril, on Tuesday thanked Qatar for supporting the rebels despite enduring “all the doubts and threats.” Another top opposition figure, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, told Qatar’s state news agency the country “played a leading and decisive role since the outbreak of the revolution.” Mr. Jibril spoke from the Qatari capital, Doha, which has served as a defacto operational base for the Libyan opposition in the Gulf. Small but wealthy, gas-rich Qatar is now reaping a foreign-policy success from its early support for Libya’s rebels—roughly a month into their uprising—carving an outsized role for itself in the Arab Spring in contrast to conservative Gulf monarchies invested in stability. Though Col. Gadhafi had alienated some of the Gulf’s sheiks, Qatar tried in recent years to forge warm business relations in Libya. In Doha, Libyan opposition leaders meeting with Arab and allied officials on Wednesday will kick-start talks on releasing some of the tens of billions of dollars locked up in Libyan frozen assets, with the rebels seeking $5 billion for the short-to-medium term. The meeting will also involve the logistics of a political transition, rebel officials said. There will be a followup meeting in Istanbul and other meetings elsewhere. During the conflict, Qatar took a leading diplomatic role in trying to hasten the Gadhafi regime’s collapse, as it sought advice this month from Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s former oil chief, and Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister, said people familiar with the matter. Qatar has also been spearheading talks on the option of a peacekeeping force for Libya’s transition process. The country has said it would be willing to contribute troops to the mission, a move likely to be welcomed by Western nations wary of contributing soldiers, a senior European diplomat said. “Out of all the Arab countries, the rebels trust the Qataris more than anyone else,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center. “I assume you will have a divided political arena in Libya in the coming months, once the rebels realize they don’t have as much in common as they thought they had, and the Qataris could play a positive role in that.” Qatar has built a track-record as a neutral arbiter in some of the Middle East’s most heated conflicts, from political stalemates in Lebanon to rebel talks in Yemen. It has managed to play off sides in the struggle for regional dominance, staying a friend of Iran—with whom it shares the world’s biggest gas field—while hosting the U.S.’s major air base in the Gulf. “Having close military relations with both sides of the Arab cold war—that’s pretty remarkable,” Mr. Hamid said. “No one else plays that balancing act.” Much of that creative foreign policy has drawn the ire of Saudi Arabia, a larger and more powerful Gulf state, for whom Qatar’s rise to global prominence has been more of an annoyance than a threat. In March, Qatar fell in line with the Gulf Cooperation Council’s move to send Saudi troops into Bahrain to defend that monarchy against a rebellion. But Qatar also took the lead on Libya’s uprising, even after the council, the collective bloc of Gulf states, provided the Arab political cover for Western military intervention. It was the first Arab country to send its jets to Libya, to recognize the rebels’ National Transitional Council, or NTC, and to market crude oil produced in rebel-controlled fields. It provided the rebels with uniforms and helped them get a television station on air. At some risk, Al Jazeera, a pan-Arabic broadcaster backed by Qatar’s royal family, has also served as a voice for protesters across the Arab world, while becoming a focal point of discontent for governments facing protests. An Al Jazeera camera-man was killed in an ambush near Benghazi and several of the station’s journalists attacked in March. Qatar is likely to keep a role in oil trading in Libya, having already helped the rebels sell cargoes of crude and delivered petroleum products to them in Benghazi, energy analysts say. It may also use its expertise as the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas to help overhaul a small LNG plant in Brega. Libya’s rebel government, too, could be looking to leverage its ties with other Gulf countries that supported their plight, analysts say, especially as Libyan officials had often looked to the Gulf for examples of how to diversify oil-reliant economies and invest wealth. “It’s not a single country that’s helping—the NTC is working now with all of its international partners,” said Aref Ali Nayed, the Libyan ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf country that took the lead in approving a no-fly zone over Libya and sending in humanitarian aid. “The Libyan people are very proud people, they will never forget their friends,” Mr. Nayed said.

Though Qatar is a small nation, over the past few years it has expanded its influence in the Middle East mainly due to its wealth. Qatar also wants to be an active player in the region. Being supportive and aiding the rebels helped increase its strategic objectives with minimal cost.

British and French special operatives fighting along Libyan rebels

French President Nicolas Sarkozy left and British Prime Minister David Cameron right

British and French special operatives have been fighting along side Libyan rebels.

French and British operatives have been working with Libyan rebels on their eastern front, where the insurgents scored strategic blows against Moamer Kadhafi’s forces, an AFP journalist discovered on Thursday. The operatives are installed at the rebel command for the eastern front, at the dysfunctional oil refinery in Zuwaytina, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) southwest of the opposition capital Benghazi. They are equipped with telecommunications equipment and housed in two shipping containers, within walking distance of the headquarters of Fawzi Bukatif, commander of the eastern front. He has been working out of a large office with walls covered in maps and satellite photos. There are at least two Frenchmen, and several Britons in mismatched camouflage outfits. In late April, Britain, France, Italy, Egypt and the United States announced that they had sent military advisers to the National Transitional Council, the rebels’ de facto government. Britain’s Defence Minister Liam Fox said Thursday that NATO is contributing intelligence and reconnaissance equipment to the search for Kadhafi but he refused to confirm reports that Britain’s SAS special forces were working with the Libyan rebels to track down Kadhafi. “I can confirm that NATO is providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets to the NTC (National Transitional Council) to help them track down Colonel Kadhafi and other remnants of the regime,” who fled before advancing rebel forces on Tuesday, he told Sky News. The Ministry of Defence said Fox was referring to “various assets such as military planes.” The Daily Telegraph newspaper, quoting defence sources, said SAS members were sent to Libya several weeks ago and played a key role in coordinating the battle for Tripoli. With the majority of the capital now in rebel hands, the SAS had been ordered to switch their focus to hunting down Kadhafi, the Telegraph said. They were wearing civilian clothes and armed with the same type of weapons used by the rebel forces, the paper said. “We never comment about special forces,” Fox said in a separate interview with BBC radio. Asked what role Britain was playing on the ground in Libya, Fox told the BBC: “We have always had some advisors to the NTC (as) we have made clear from the outset, helping them with communications, helping them with logistics, the chain of command and so on. “And we would of course want to continue with those relationships.”

As previously reported before here, U.S., British, Egyptian, French and Italian special operatives have been on the ground in Libya helping the rebels fight against Gadaffi. None of what is reported is new, just a confirmation of actions that were logical from the start of the NATO enforcing the no-fly-zone over Libya.

Iran secretly aided Libyan rebels

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi

Iran has been secretly helping the Libyan rebels in the fight against Gaddafi in and around Tripoli.

Iran “discreetly” provided humanitarian aid to Libyan rebels before the fall of Tripoli, Jam-e-Jam newspaper quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday as saying.

“We were in touch with many of the rebel groups in Libya before the fall of (Moamer) Kadhafi, and discreetly dispatched three or four food and medical consignments to Benghazi,” Salehi told the daily.

“The head of the National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, sent a letter of thanks to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for having been on their side and helping,” he added.

Since the Libyan uprising erupted in mid-February, Iran has adopted a dual approach — criticising the Kadhafi regime for its violent assaults on the rebels while at the same time condemning NATO’s military intervention.

On Tuesday, Iran “congratulated the Muslim people of Libya” after rebels overran the capital Tripoli, but it has so far distanced itself from officially recognising the NTC.

This is not at all surprising to people who know the politics of the Middle East. Iran and Gadaffi have been at odds with each other for a long time. Gadaffi had blamed numerous uprisings in Libya on Iran. It would be just as unsurprising to learn that the Iranians had been discreetly helping Gaddafi, too. They’re probably playing both sides so they can gain a foothold no matter who wins.

Britain will recognize Libya’s Transitional National Council as the Libya’s legitimate government

Britain will formally recognize Libya’s Transitional National Council as the country’s legitimate government. The British Foreign Secretary announced that envoys from the rebels’ National Transitional Council will now replace current embassy staff in London. More than 30 countries have recognized the NTC including the US, Germany, France, and Turkey.

United States recognises Libyan rebel council as legitimate government of Libya

U.S Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reacts with Mahmud Jibril, Chairman of the Libyan Interim National Transitional Council, during the fourth Libya Contact Group Meeting in Istanbul, Friday, July 15, 2011.

The United States has formally recognized Libya’s Transitional National Council as the country’s legitimate government.  The US is the latest country to officially do this after such nations like Turkey, France and Germany. More than 30 countries from around the world have recognized the Transitional National Council as the only legitimate representative government for the people of Libya.

Diplomatic recognition means that the U.S. will soon be able to fund the opposition with some of the more than $30 billion in Gahdafi-regime assets that are frozen in American banks. Other countries holding billions more in such assets will be able to do the same.

Contact Group representatives broke into spontaneous applause when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her nation’s recognition of the NTC, according to U.S. officials.

Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shammam welcomed the NTC’s recognition and called on other nations to deliver on a promise to release hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to the opposition. “Funds, funds, funds,” Shammam said, in order to stress the opposition’s demand. It remained unclear Friday whether the unfrozen assets could be used to purchase arms, or if some restrictions would still apply. More than 30 countries have recognized the NTC much to Gahdafi’s opposition.

Clinton said the council won international recognition after giving assurances it would respect human rights and presenting a plan on how to pave the way to a truly democratic Libyan government.

She said the assurances included upholding the group’s international obligations, pursuing a democratic reform process that is both geographically and politically inclusive, and dispersing funds for the benefit of the Libyan people.

The recognition does not mean that the U.S. diplomatic mission in the rebel-held city of Benghazi, Libya, is now an embassy. Titles of staff and names of offices will be decided in the coming days, the officials said.